Specialist brochures for disabled travellers are being displayed in High Street travel agencies for the first time.
Travel agents belonging to the Worldchoice Travel consortium, which represents
650 agencies throughout the UK, are racking the brochures, produced by Gloucester-based
Accessible Travel and Leisure.
But Accessible Travel managing director Richard Thompson said that not all Worldchoice agents would get the company’s 90-page Worldwide brochure immediately.
“Agents will first have to go through a process that includes assessment of accessibility of their premises and staff training,” said Thompson. “We recognise that issues of accessibility have not been high on the agenda for the UK travel industry and that shops will have to address rights of access as well as staff education.”
Accessible Travel’s 2004 Worldwide brochure offers a wide choice of year-round packages in the Canary Islands and Spain and a good selection in other destinations that include Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, Portugal, Florida, Barbados, Cuba and Mexico. A further section offers ideas for tailor-made holidays in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Egypt, along with cruises, city breaks, accessible weddings and group travel. Members of Accessible Travel staff have personally vetted the entire product in the new brochure.
Thompson said the new brochure aimed to bring disabled travel into the mainstream travel industry.
“We are trying to break the mould. Our brochure is designed to sell holidays but it is also designed to make a statement within the industry.
“It is no longer any good hiding behind the excuse that ‘I can’t do it’. We are saying that disabled travel is still travel – it uses the same planes and the same hotels, so what’s the big deal?
”
He added that he did not blame travel agents for the poor record that the
UK travel industry has in the field of disabled travel.
“They are in a difficult position. They have had no dedicated product to sell to people who come through the door and they didn’t know how to communicate with people with special needs because they have never had any training.
“Sure, they can cobble something together from regular tour operator brochures and hope that it will work, but that is not the same as listening to what people want and then tailor-making a holiday to suit.”
Accessible Travel and Leisure can be contacted at 01452 729739. It’s website is www.accessibletravel.co.uk.